Labour Studies - Lecture 10 Notes.docx

Hayley Dawson March 19 , 2013 Hard Times & Survival (Part Two) Dirty Thirties  Brutal in Canada and around world because of Great Depression  Children suffered  Lots of suffering Great Depression  Canada was one of hardest hit countries  Not the only depression  Deserves to be called the Great Depression  The greatest of all economic crisis’s  1932: unemployment was 20%  Depression started in 1929  Was not a short run, economy went down for four years  Decline 1929-1933 o GNP: 42% decline o Average Annual Income: 50% decline o New Investment: 89% decline  Was great because it went on for so long  Recovery started in 33-34 and was desperately weak  In 1939: economy still had not gotten back to where it was in 1929  Does not really end until war is done Overproduction/Underconsumption  Overproduction problem  Factories had a great capacity to produce products  People could not consume that many goods  Do not have money to afford it  Companies were churning out more products than the economy could consume because they had the capacity to  People were living month-to-month  Could not afford these products  Stock market crash test the economy and it does not survive Overextension  Factories were so big  Built up factories to the scale that even if they just ran the factory they would produce too much for people to buy  Had grown the economy to a scale that the economy could not support  Factories had capacity to produce way more than could be consumed  Economy “choked” on it’s own products  Demand was way higher than supply Hayley Dawson March 19 , 2013  Had way more capacity to carry goods through railways than was already needed  So much of money invested in building new plants and railways was borrowed  Were confident that economy would keep on growing so kept building more railways and bigger factories  Economy does not keep on growing  Too many plants, too many railways, too many debts to be paid Varied Impacts  Impacts of the depression varied  Impacts depended on who you were, where you were and what you did Business Consolidation  Upside for a lot of bigger businesses was that they could survive the thirties but that their smaller competitors couldn’t  Bigger companies would buy out smaller companies  Even though they are not making alot of money they are getting more control of the market Region  Fish prices fell in 20s so when fell in 30s did not matter that much  Prairie west was impacted a lot in 30s  Dust clouds impacted farmers and all businesses that worked with farmers (ex. businesses who make tools or shipped wheat)  Cities were based on serving these farming areas  Mines in northern Ontario were not hit hard  They were still mining things that were in demand (ex. Gold)  Timmins, Ontario was one of best places to be in thirties  Sudbury was okay too because nickel was in demand  Copper, ore mining, pulp and paper areas were hit hard because produced for industrial factories Industry  Early 1930s: manufacturing was hit badly (everyone)  Toronto and Hamilton were hard hit  Was a divide between big ticket and small ticket manufacturers after this  Big/Small Ticket o Big ticket: things that are expensive or you have to borrow to buy it (cars, appliances, construction) o Were hit harder if were bigger o No one has the money to buy a car o No one was taking out loans, no one was giving out loans o Small ticket: things that involve smaller investment, essential things Hayley Dawson March 19 , 2013 o Starts to recover first because people needed more clothes, shoes, etc. o Do not have to take out a loan to buy these o Garment industry starts to recover, small appliance industries (cutlery, etc.) o Will help Montreal, Hamilton, Toronto because have garment industries Gender  Impact of gender was reverse of the norm  Industries that were less affected by depression were women industries  Women were a lot of the time the ones who keep their jobs in families  Office work and teaching still stayed (feminized)  Created friction within families and communities  Became a strong sense that jobs should go to men  Male-dominated industries were hit harder than female  Married women got a lot of pressure to leave their jobs  Women and men delayed getting married for this reason  Also put off having children Ethnicity  Jobs belonged to white British men  Immigrants faced a lot of resentment  People were angry if immigrants had jobs  Jobs should go to white men  Rule of “last hired, first fired”  Conditions were very bad for Chinese (some starved to death)  Government refused to help Age  Great deal of attention paid to the plight of young people  Did not get any work and did not have any prospects  Already employment rates of 30% and they are looking for work  A lot of people got on trains going from one town to the next looking for work or hoping for better conditions in the next town  Towns did not really want more people to come through because could already not support people there Deflation  Sign that economy is depressed  Will keep getting worse (vicious cycle)  Prices drop  If you could keep your job the buying power of the money you had increased  Standard of living of people who kept jobs went up Hayley Dawson March 19 , 2013  Would also have more people to support (support networks)  Made it more important for people to hold on to any work they had even if they had to put up with pay cut or bad conditions Organizations and Strategies, Old and New (Part One) Government Policy  Government was very cautious  Did not have a lot of new ideas 1920s: Orthodoxy  Established ways of doing things  Balanced budgets  War ended: ended all military production  Prime Minister was William Lyon Mackenzie King (Canada’s most successful polit